Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @01:36PM
from the cain't-let-the-terrists-use-the-internets dept.

At a dinner honoring those who stand up for freedom of speech, former House speaker Newt Gingrich issued his opinion that the idea of free speech in the U.S. needs to be re-examined in the interest of fighting terrorism. Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message. The article has few details of what Gingrich actually said beyond the summary above, and no analysis pointing out how utterly clueless the suggestion is given the Internet's nature and trans-national reach.

On one hand, it galls me that Mr. Gingrich would say free speech should be limited at a First Amendment Award banquet. The real irony, though, is that this is exactly what the speech, press, and association clauses of the first amendment are all about: protecting the expression of political ideas that might disagree with law, government policy, or popular opinion.

I can think of a twenty cent solution to your problem, but it is generally frowned upon. However, the government does it all the time, and he wants to be a part of the government, so I suppose he should be fair game.

But it is so galling that these idiots who claim to want to defend the country see no problems with attempting to dismantle the very things that MAKE this country what it is. Where is this disconnect happening in their heads? I put this to my young sons:

Somebody wants to take your favorite toy. You could break it apart is small pieces and bury those pieces in the ground so they can't find it. Now I have 2 questions:

1) Is your toy now safe? They both answered yes.2) Did you protect your toy? They both answered no.

The people who think that we need to sacrifice our civil liberties to fight terrorism really don't understand our liberties, nor do they really understand what the founding fathers were trying to create. They basically have a tribal/warmongering view of society of 'us vs. them'. In their world-view, different groups of people will wipe each other out if given the slightest chance. The only way to survive is to be a tough guy yourself. There is no right or wrong or rule of law in the abstract sense; instead, if it benefits us and hurts them, it is good; if is benefits them and hurts us, it is bad. That's why it's okay for us to torture -- we need it to get information from terrorists who are going to blow up our children. However, when they do it to us, it is wrong, because it hurts us.

They have never really thought of the United States as a politically free people; the US is simply our team, and we will do whatever we need to in order to win. They are sadistic, and get off on the idea of torture, war, etc. They've never served, but they have adolescent fantasies of blowing shit up and killing bad guys.

Actually, one could view the Bill of Rights as our own "Tough Guy Manifesto", thus:

1) You can't tell me what to believe, or make me go home and shut up.

2) I'll go armed and defend myself, thank you.

3) You can't make me let someone else live in my house.

4) This is MY house; if you can't demonstrate a compelling need to snoop, stay the fuck out.

5) This is MY shit; keep your greedy hands off it. And don't go accusing me of Evil without evidence.

6) If you've got evidence, lay it on the table. And no fair getting a confession by pitchforking me in the ass.

7) I ain't guilty just on YOUR say-so.

8) You can't keep me in jail just because you want to.

9) As to the rest of my life, you can't tell me what to do or not do.

10) And neither can your big fat uncle in Washington.

Yeah, the Founding Fathers framed it in far more polite language, but the intent is the same. They understood standing up for yourself and not letting the gov't push you around -- your own or anyone else's. That was, after all, what the War for Independence was all about.

As I speculate in another message, the fact that the gov't isn't forced to live within its means may be the real root of the problem. Effectively, they're ALLOWED to blow their own lunch money on candy, then knock you down and take your lunch money too.

Actually, I got the idea from *your* post:)The framers' core concept was "We WILL stand up for ourselves; we will NOT be bullied by any government." And in the real world, there are plenty of bullies (from the personal to the global) who won't take NO for an answer unless they're sure you WILL defend yourself.

Defending your rights *doesn't* mean bullying back. It means drawing a line and saying "This far, and no farther," and being willing to back that up as needed. That is exactly what the Bill of Rights

Of all the things that the ACLU stands for, this is one I have NEVER seen them stand for.

The ACLU makes it clear that there are other rights organizations narrowly focused on Amendment 2. As such, they have no particular reason to re-cover that particular base. Realistically, they started out as an Amendment 1 focused organization branched out to Amendments 14 and 15 (when it was fairly clear that, in certain areas of the country, Amendment 1 rights were being denied on the basis of race) and have branched out to other (mainly due process) amendments because most of the abuses WRT the other Amendments tend to have a chilling effect on the First. I don't think they've ever said they were there to cover the entire Bill of Rights. Criticizing them for not doing so is as silly as criticizing the NRA for not defending Amendment 3.

Exactly so:( We've no practical way to force the gov't to live within its means, and stop robbing us blind. And so long as they effectively hold our purse strings, they have control. And as I've said over and over, the only TRUE freedom is economic. Without money, other freedoms are just so much verbiage, since you're effectively prevented from using them. Control the money, control the freedoms, if only from fear of losing the good life you've got.

A shooting revolution isn't realistic in These Modern Times, as there aren't enough truly starving people to generate that level of rebellion (I'd guestimate around half the population has to be in chronic distress before a revolution can happen anywhere), nor is there anywhere for the disgruntled to retreat to and strike from (as there was with frontier America). When we do get space colonies, that may change.

They have never really thought of the United States as a politically free people; the US is simply our team, and we will do whatever we need to in order to win. They are sadistic, and get off on the idea of torture, war, etc. They've never served, but they have adolescent fantasies of blowing shit up and killing bad guys.blah blah blah Newt's a fascist blah blah doesn't understand our constitution blah rights blah blah stupid blah blah blah freedom blah blah

OK great. We've all totally GOT IT that freedom of speech is a critical and inalienable HUMAN (ie applies to all, not just US citizens) right.

Then again...

It's pretty frikken' easy to stand at the sidelines and lob criticism at policymakers. After all, you're just some wanker on an anonymous login, YOU'LL never be tasked with the responsibility of actually making policy, right?

So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that- believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc.- believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws- will cheerfully kill you because you disagree

How do YOU stop someone sitting next to you whose beliefs are not only inimical to yours, but he WANTS to kill you? Do you 'tolerate' him until he (hopefully) goes away? What about when he starts grabbing the local kids off the playground and starts explaining to them how wonderful his creed of hate is, blaming you for everything wrong that's ever happened to him, and telling them that if they kill you they will be rewarded, even if they die doing it?

And don't say "education" or "poverty" in your answer, as the 9/11 hijackers were all well educated and came from (at least) comfortably middle-class backgrounds.

I can't wait to see how many THOUSANDS of +5 insightful responses we get in here, since so MANY people are so instantly ready to criticize, they MUST have solutions themselves, right? Otherwise they are just typical internet windbag hypocrites.

So, if you can spare a moment between breathless rants about how sacrosanct our rights are, please, let us all in on YOUR secret plan to neutralize a fundamentalist religious creed (Wahabism) that

- believes women are chattel, homosexuals should be killed, etc.
- believes that the Koran is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully kill you because you disagree

Let's see.. a couple of edits here:

s/chattel/second-class citizens/

s/killed/discriminated against or beaten/

s/Koran/Bible/

s/kill/shout you down and work to make laws to limit your freedoms/

Now it reads:

- believes women are second-class citizens, homosexuals should be discriminated against or beaten, etc.
- believes that the Bible is the only source of any worthwhile laws
- will cheerfully shout you down and work to make laws to limit your freedoms you because you disagree

Sounds a lot like modern American Evangelical Christians. Only the degree in which they want to "punish" the "infidels" is different.

...though, I believe if they thought they could get away with it, most Evangelical Christians wouldn't mind killing homosexuals and those that disagree with them.

Stop the fearmongering. There will ALWAYS be someone on this planet that wants to kill you for who you are. Tribalism is ingrained in our DNA. The solution to that is not to change your way of life... it's to work to change the OTHER bastards' way of life. I have no problem with killing Wahabist terrorists who want to kill us. I have a MAJOR problem with devaluing what it means to be an American to accomplish this. If we devalue our Bill of Rights, then what the hell our we fighting for anyway?

Yes, exactly right. The Bill of Rights is less touchy-feely than most people think. Speech, arms, freedom for forcing soldiers into your home, freedom from unreasonable search and seizures, fair trials, nor cruel or unusual punishment, etc. These are to constrain the ability of the government to quell a just revolution.

If we want freedom for ourselves, we must preserve the right of others to say things we disagree with.

This is a bit of American civic theory that I've never understood. You claim that free speech and the right to bear arms are necessary to enable you to violently overthrow your government. But doesn't violently overthrowing your government also fall under the definition of treason and/or terrorism? How do you tell the difference?

It's an honest question. I'm not American, and this has never made sense to me. That may also be partly due to the fact that it often seems that the people most vocal in defense o

And many of those that "get it" don't get it. You can no longer reshape the government with FORCE by bearing arms. Their guns are much bigger than our guns.

I think maybe you don't get it. Small arms are effective for a civil war. It's not like the government can nuke cities within its own borders without creating even more rebels elsewhere. Also, in most civil conflicts a significant portion of the military sides with each faction. So the guns they have are also the guns we have, in some proportion.

Even to put this in terms of simple numbers, if the entire military had chips installed so they always followed orders and half the able men 18-30 not in the military rose up and lost at a rate of 100 people to kill one brainwashed soldier, there would still be some left over in addition to the rest of the populace.

Obviously, I can't predict the circumstances which would cause a mass armed revolt against the government in the US, but it'd probably have to be a really big deal to get a big portion of the population to that point. There would have to be some horrendous and really obvious things going down. Were that the case, I have a hard time believing that much of the armed forces would side with the government that's under-seige. We have an all volunteer army, with a lot of diversity among the soldiers. Basically,

I think maybe you don't get it. Small arms are effective for a civil war. It's not like the government can nuke cities within its own borders without creating even more rebels elsewhere. Also, in most civil conflicts a significant portion of the military sides with each faction. So the guns they have are also the guns we have, in some proportion.

I believe the point is this: if you have a small scale uprising then small arms won't help, you'll get branded as terrorists, get little sympathy from the general p

I believe the point is this: if you have a small scale uprising then small arms won't help, you'll get branded as terrorists, get little sympathy from the general populace, and at best provide a nuisance; if you have a large scale uprising then you can be just as effective without small arms in the hands of ordinary citizens - just having mass protests with people standing up nd saying "No" will do the job as well as anything else.

First, who is to say what is small and what is large? What if you have a m

The insurgents in Iraq seem to be fighting a quite capable war of attrition using, for the most part, arms quite accessible to the general public here.

That "seem to be" is, I believe, what prompted Gingrich's comments. It's clear that the US is losing the propaganda war, and for some reason clueless folks seem to think that muzzling free speech might somehow help.

Michael Yon had a good essay recently about how the US is failing in the information war. It's about getting your story ou

the second amendment preserves the right to bear arms explicitly for the defense of the state - not for the overthrow of the government.

The defense of the state was against the federal government. Or did you somehow miss the historical context where the states had just staged a revolution? Nobody was worried about the right to hunt, or about the possibility of the Spanish suddenly invading New York. They were worried about a federal government overstepping its bounds. Obviously since the Civil War, the le

Ok, as a lifelong conservative, I find the thought of limiting anyones freedom of speech morally offensive (note the sarcasm in my subject line). Unless it's yelling fire in a theater (or similar action), or conspiracy to commit a crime, freedom of speech should never be inhibited publically. I didn't RTFA, but Newt is off his rocker on this one (and a few others), though I'll defend his right to speak his mind.

"I don't see any evidence to suggest that his message is anything other than what's in TFA"

Right. That's because there is no transcript of the speech to refer to, so all your evidence is the article, there is no other "evidence" you've seen other than the article. So, basically you are trusting the news source (NBC blowing up cars, Washington Post reporting fictional events etc), at the expense of actually doing the research or waiting till the transcript comes out.

You obviously have more faith in "unbiased" reporters than I do, as I can clearly prove that there is no such thing as "unbiased" news. Everyone has an agenda (including me).

So, I am completely reserving judgment on this one until further review. I wasn't there, so I don't know, and I sure the hell don't believe one article on some website as "proof" that He said or didn't say anything.

I wonder though, if it is proven that he never said any such thing, if those that are lambasting him today will change their opinion of him or just chalk it up to the Dan Rather school of forged documents by saying "while the article was false, I believe that it portrayed Newt correctly"

MANCHESTER, N.H. --Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday that First Amendment rights need to be expanded and cited the elimination of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms as one solution.

... (later in the article)

Noting the thwarted London terrorist attacks this summer, Gingrich said there should be a Geneva Convention for such actions that makes those people subject to "a totally different set of rules."

From this Globe article (hardly a conservative-friendly paper) it appears Gingrich's "totally different set of rules" has not to do with freedom of speech, but with the Geneva Convention as applied to terrorists, which is a whole 'nother bag of worms in and of itself; however, the question remains as to how the OP managed to spin what seem to be two separate points into one decidedly negative message.

Does anyone have the actual transcript of his speech there so we can figure out who's full of BS and who's not? Think about it -- if the man is even THINKING of running for President in '08, he certainly isn't going to get elected if he runs on a platform of RESTRICTING basic freedom of speech.

Nowhere in the Declaration does it state or even imply that the "Creator" is the Judeo-Christian God of the bible.

It is intentionally vague, so as to apply to everyone's concept of who/what the "Creator" is.

For example, for Pagans, the Creator = Mother Nature.... and the Declaration means the same.

Even for an agnostic, "Creator" can mean whatever ends up being true.

It's a catch-all word that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. A large percentage of the founders were Deists, and did not follow strict Christian teachings.... though they did believe in the concept of a supreme being, they didn't necessarily believe in the concept as laid out in the Judeo-Christian bible.

Side note... nowhere in the Constitution are the words "God" or "Christ" or any equivalent word used. Nowhere. The Declaration of Independence was a statement of grievances to a tyrant, and basically a "Divorce Decree"... it was (and is) not a governing document. *THE* governing document of the United States is the Constitution, and it specifically does NOT speak of a supreme being or even indirectly imply one.

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams

I'm still stunned that the conservative movement, which used to claim to champion smaller government and strict constitutional readings, has turned into a champion of authoritarian governmental control. The Bill of Rights is key to the freedoms we enjoy as Americans and these rights were ironed out by leaders who just emerged victorious from a civil war. They understood war and its dangers but more importantly they understood the danger of tyranny, and so the very first right in the Bill of Rights is the right to free speech. To try and claim that now we must suspend this fundamental right because of "war" is to go against the very underpinnings of this country's foundation and sets the stage for increasing authoritarianism by the US Government.

We have warrantless wiretaps and searches that basically ignore the Fourth Amendmant.

Now some want to curb free speech.

At some point you have to ask yourself what are we fighting for?

There was a time when our steadfast will to uphold the US Constitution gave us somewhat of a moral compass that differentiate us from our foes.

Now we are basically eroding the very document that made the US a great nation.

The very purpose of terrorism is NOT to kill. That is a means to an desired end result.

Here is a common definition of terrorism:

the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear

By us disregarding the Constitution we are giving the terrorists what they want.

The terrorists are winning because the governments of the western world are GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT.

And don't think for a second some of this is not for the benefit of the mega-multinational corporations either.

This is facism at it's purest. Welcome to the 21st century. I hope you enjoy your coup that George W Bush et al engineered.

Google News lists a dozen newspapers that are running this story, but they all site this one story as the source. I look forward to hearing more details. Although perhaps, if he really did say something this stupid, we may not hear from him much more.

Sounds more like someone from the left is starting the standard "out of context" smear campaign. They know he might run for President next time and are trying to eliminate him before he starts. Both sides do it and there is very little truth in any of it. Like everything else in politics, accuracy and honesty are not required.

It makes some sense, as a culture, to ask ourselves what sort of speech we find reasonable. That's not to be confused with what's allowed - since that's nonsense, both practically and idealogically. Of course, that hasn't stopped the political correctness crowd from attempting to move beyond condemnation and into actual banning of certain phrases - but generally only in the tiny little fiefdoms where they reign, like at schools, or county councils.

But I've got no problem with having a loud enough discussion on this sort of subject, in a broad enough context, that we arrive at a slightly altered popular notion of whether it's culturally acceptable for people to rant along certain lines. For example, we quite delightfully shout down the idiot neo-Nazis and KKK-types when they decide to hold one of their special-ed style marches through some poor picked-upon town that has no choice but to issue them a parade permit. By all means, they should have the permit, and off they go. And a counter-demonstration shouldn't be allowed to occupy a street to protest them, or shut down traffic to hang things up (unless they've got their own permit to occupy said intersection). But that doesn't mean we can't just shame them into cultural oblivion, and in most towns where such things have happened, the klansgoons end up looking like the twits they are - with no speech bans necessary. Such movements arise by being given enough social comfort to exist, and they can be squashed by being starved of the same.

Obviously, the context here is seen in the whipping up of zealots and jihaddis, and the inflammatory wackiness that fuels that mindset and the resulting carnage. Not counting direct incitement to riot or outright criminal conspiracy (which aren't and never have been protected speech), the challenge is to expose the clowns who spew this stuff, and do so in a context that shows what loons they are. If, as is so often claimed, there is a vast, silent majority of non-crazy Muslims, then the job is (since the inciters have no shame) to shame the quiet ones into mopping up their own fringe loons. This isn't done by limiting speech, it's done by showcasing it and calling it what it is. In other words, we can leave the constitution alone and still, as a culture, act to cast a harsher and less forgiving light on the mysoginists and the religious crazies that would prefer the calendar read '11/28/1006'.

I guess it just seems odd that some soccer mom would feel rude telling a jihaddist recruiter that what he preaches to impressionable young men is toxic, malicious buffoonery, but that same mom would have no problem chastising their neighbor's kid for saying something disparaging about the (to them) comic-book-villain-looking Imam whose weekly sermon is actually entitled "Democracy Is Unislamic," with a breakout session on "Death To America."

Yes, yes, mod me down. But you know this doesn't have anything to do with Newt Gingrich or freedom. It's about what we proclaim - through our silence - to be acceptable within the context of western democracy. The Germans over-reacted and made certain utterances illegal - but making the utterers feel like fools is far more effective in the long term. Rebellion against a law gets passed down through families (see Ireland), but kids embarassed by their dad's medieval rantings tend to be the last branch of the family to repeat them. Or act on them.

Sorry to say folks, but the ideals that created America were pure and just, and they have run their course.

What I mean by this is not that we should give up on those ideals, rather, they simply won't work any more in the land mass and 300 Million strong group of people we now call the U.S.A. The ideals need to be there even more than ever before.

In fact, we need to restart, and re-assert with utmost clarity the freedoms that allow humanity to flourish. We need to have another continental congress (of sorts) and begin the process of building smaller groups that support human freedoms from the tyranny that Newt represents.

Statements like those by Newt are sad by not unexpected. Rome failed too, and so will the USA, for similar reasons. In Newt's world, he CAN NOT SEE how people can be truly free and actually realize the real freedoms encoded in the constitution while simultaneously maintaining the system of controls needed for the USA to function the way it does now.

The challenge is different now than it was in the mid 1770s. People have lots more guns, a lot less land to move into, a more technology for those in power to maintain control. Yet - it has to happen, and it will, even if only virtually. People need to reassert the freedoms that we agree upon, and structure the society we live in to maintain those freedoms.The USA no longer does.

I don't see any Democrats stepping up to repeal the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act. I don't see them stepping up to reduce the abuses of the executive branch. They won't, because they can't. Pelosi will block impeachment. Dems benefit from more powerful government as most of them are career politicos just like the Republicans. The USA version of Left/Right in politics is a false dichotomy supported for power by the right and unable to be opened/changed by the dis-united left.

Several points:
I have read the transcipt. Newt never said that free speech should be curtailed. Indeed, he said it should be expanded. But what's accuracy between a few friends?
It should be pointed that the few attempts at LEGISLATION that would curtail free speech was sponsored by Democrats. It is also worth noting that the PMRC was the brainchild of Tipper Gore and that the panel was packed with Democrats. The two Repulicans on the panel, not any of the Democrats, were the ones who called the opponents of free speech restrictions as witnesses. A lot of folks forget that it was Edwin Meese, the Attorney General at the time and a Republican, wrote a legal opinion opposing the proposed PMRC legislation. He said parents were the bets people to decide whether children should be listening to Frank Zappa or whomever.
Next, people like to whine about the suspension of habeas corpus and about warrantless searches, like George Bush invented these things or in responsible for them. Suspension of habeas corpus for prisoners of war has been the standard for nearly 65 years in the United States. In fact, President Lincoln utilized it during wartime. Also, before moving forward on it, President Bush consulted congress, or as I like to call them elected representatives of the people, and had its full support, included the democrats. Meanwhile, there is a legal standard for searches without warrants. Indeed, it's provided for in the U.S. Constitution, and the Bush administration followed the standard required by the court.

"Next, people like to whine about the suspension of habeas corpus and about warrantless searches, like George Bush invented these things or in responsible for them. Suspension of habeas corpus for prisoners of war has been the standard for nearly 65 years in the United States. "

1: Prisoners of War? Since when was George Bush talking about Prisoners of War?

He are suspending habeas corpus for non POWs. people who Bush claims are in legal limbo with no rights and no status whatsoever. mere chattle of the US military. Conveniently labelled "detainee".

"Also, before moving forward on it, President Bush consulted congress, or as I like to call them elected representatives of the people, and had its full support, included the democrats."

I'm sure you like to call them "representatives of the people". It kind of makes them sound legitimate doesn't it. snicker.But come secret congressional comittee consisting of Dick Cheney and a few congressmen sworn to secrecy which does not include all of congress is NOT the same thing as consulting congress. Moreover congress does not approve or disapprove of anything except via passing LAW. It is not the executive branch.

Was a law passed which authorized warantless searches? NO. Congress does not offer support of things in real time. (not without violating the seperation of powers). It passes laws. Those laws are then carried out by the Executive, and overseen by the judicial branch which is the sole final arbiter for the meaning of the words of the law. It is the written word which counts. not backroom deals, winks, nods and handshakes.

As to the presence of democrats in congress.. Who cares? The democrats and the republicans are the same political party. There is no significant difference of opinion on almost any issues. Citing democrats as justification for the republican's wrongdoings is as fallacious as when the democrats point the finger at republicans to justify theirs. The entire system is corrupt. And both parties merely take turns screwing the people for private gain.

"Meanwhile, there is a legal standard for searches without warrants. "

yes. exigent circumstances. And there weren't any exigent circumstances here. There were plenty of chances to get a warrant.

"...and the Bush administration followed the standard required by the court." bull shit. which court case made such a finding?

``Gingrich said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.''

I have to wonder why Gingrich is so afraid of free speech. If the "terrorists" are using it to get out their message and recruit people, perhaps this says something about their cause and the state of the world? Apparently, the message is, somehow, convincing. What is the message? Why are people so angry that they become terrorists? Perhaps _that's_ what we should be looking at. I have the feeling that doing so might improve things for us and for the people who are now being recruited by the terrorists, making the recruiters less successful, and us safer.

Five years ago, saying this provoked angry reactions and accusations of siding with the terrorists. Let's see what happens in 2006, after years of war, erosion of rights, lies, and public outrage.

Freedom of speech is one of the core principles upon which this country is founded, and in this post 9-11/Internet/Pentagon Papers/McCarthyism/American Century era, a re-examination of those principles is perhaps exactly what this country needs. Let us examine such highfalutin ideals like freedom of speech, expression, religion, and the press that our founding fathers saw fit to make the foundation of jurisprudence in this country in light of enemies who really DO hate freedom. How much do we want to become like our enemies in order to be safe from them? Do we need to become like them at all? Is it possible to survive as a nation clinging to principles that are two centuries old? Is it possible for us to survive if we forsake them?

It's definitely time to have this conversation, because we have already given up so much in the name of making ourselves more secure. And while we're at it, let's have this conversation with the Republican party, which is purportedly in favor of tax cuts, smaller government involvement in daily lives, greater personal freedom, and greater personal responsibility. While we're asking the American people if we want to go so horribly wrong, let us ask the Republicans how they have gone so far astray from the core values of the Party of Lincoln.

Gingrich is the same kind of politician that asserted that waging war on Iraq would make us safer, when, in fact, it has done the opposite. And now, he is making similarly wild assertions about how restricting free speech would make us safer.

The problem here is not any difficulty of dealing with terrorism, the problem is that Gingrich and politicians like him are completely and utterly incompetent.

Tragic as it is, an instance of 3000 deaths does not warrant throwing away our democracy or spending billions of dollars on ill-conceived wars; we have tens of thousands of preventable deaths from the flu and from traffic accidents each every year.

And maybe Gingrich didn't notice, but we did lose a city recently. That loss would have been completely preventable if people like Gingrich had done their job. And it would have been preventable at a fraction of the cost of the current anti-terrorism measures and without destroying our democracy.

Terrorism is bad. It really is. It does not follow that it is so bad that we need to re-examin our fundemental rights.

Far more people die at the hands of run-of-the-mill criminals, in automobile accidents, of heart disease, and of AIDS. The number of Americans who were killed by terrorists last year was laughably small (Even our president calls those guys in Iraq insurgents and not terrorists, just in case you wanted to lump them in).

So why give up free speech? Privacy? Protection against unreasonable search and seisure? To stop the "scourge" of terrorism that didn't bomb a single target you can actually name last year?

These guys want power over you. They want to arrest you for mere suspision, they want to detain you for disagreeing, they want to hold you as long as they want without a trial, and they want to beat the confesion out of you when time alone doesn't make you change your tune. Then they want ot take the false info you gave them and proclaim "Look! We stopped this terrorist!"

Don't give it to them. Don't give them your rights. Anyone who says you need to make that kind of sacrifice, he's the one you want to kick out of office.

In innumerable battles, soldiers of the United States of America went forth with a high degree of certainty that they would die. But they went forward in the belief that they would protect our liberties.

Yet today, with the incredibly remote threat that we might be harmed, we gladly offer these same liberties up for sacrifice at the altar.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Göring at the Nuremberg trials

Let's recap: 1) We're under attack by Terrorists. 2) America hating Cut-and-Run Democrats will harm the nation. It's the same chapter from the same playbook the Nazi's used.

It's uncanny how recent law changes and the subsequent cries for more control and less freedom in the US mimic the changes that take place in "Animal Farm"...

It appears that Newt is just another pig, and the American constituency are the remainder of the barnyard animals. You need to find some mules with voices to nip this in the bud before it goes any further.

The intellectual laziness of current conventional political thinkers really galls me. One thing that all of the Founding Fathers agreed on is that a free society presents some difficulties and challenges, but that it's well worth the extra effort freedom requires.

It may be that to maintain our liberty we will be more vulnerable to terrorist attack. Well, that's a price of freedom, but one that with a sensible and progressive foreign policy we can attenuate.

All of the Founding Fathers knew that a free society is inconvenient for our leaders. It makes it a little harder to govern a nation that is free to say and do what they want as long as it doesn't step on the toes of others. It's one of the reasons Jefferson, Washington and others maintained that we've got to keep religion out of the government, because religion proposes easy answers, shortcuts if you will, to get people to behave a certain way.

But the Great Men of the Enlightenment knew that the price of being unwilling to do the hard work of Liberty is darkness for all mankind.

There was a time that America's willingness to work at staying free was a beacon to the world. It provided encouragement to young men and women who lived in Totalitarian societies and kept a flame of hope alive for those who suffered under tyrants. The desire of lazy leaders to skip over the inconveniencies of things like warrants, habeas corpus and free speech, along with the notion that the natural resources of the world are ours to command, have turned us into the object of hatred instead of the hope of the world, which is the natural place of a free people.

It may be that to maintain our liberty we will be more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Or we may be less vulnerable. While it's true that free speech (and freedom of association, a separate but related right) may allow "the terrorists" to organize and recruit, it also allows their enemies (us, free Americans) to organize and recruit as well. One of the great national strengths that freedom of speech conveys is the power of many. Like open source software development, the power of many means that the more pe

Actually I think the Constitution was quite clear that just because they failed to enumerate something, doesn't mean that the government should feel free to regulate it into oblivion.In fact, in the Federalist Papers (no. 84, if you're counting) Alexander Hamilton described the very road you're going down as one of the reasons why a country shouldn't have a Bill of Rights:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary i

I'm old enough to remember when the threat was all the "evil, godless Communists" who wanted us dead.Actually, I do believe that the Founding Fathers intended future methods of communications to be covered by the First Amendment. And even though they could not have envisioned the Internet and Oprah "being beamed around the world", they lived in a time when there was also an explosion of global communications and commerce. The notion that they were some primitives and we need to revise their vision because

saider said:"Most people ignore the fact that the Founding Fathers established a system that was borderline anarchy. Just enough to keep a lid on things and let the people solve the problems themselves."Brother, you are singing my tune. Before the election, I went back and read a little Tom Paine and other Enlightenment thinkers (Rights of Man, Age of Reason, etc).

Anybody who thinks they were a bunch of button-down, churchgoers who would have blanched at the wide-open societies that followed them are reall

The answer is to use our freedom to BECOME barbaric bastards that kill innocent people. What nobody seems to understand is that we're getting side attacks from what is basically a theological civil war of reformation- from a religion that espouses "kill the infidel". It's a war of genocide already- just ask the black tribes in Sudan and Chad- of "kill all the unbelievers". The only question is who will be successfull in the genocide first- some sect of less than 100,000 people using machine guns or suicide bombers, or a country of 300 million people using nukes.

Surely you're not so naive as to think the USA isn't responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians (and probably millions in fact) over the last 40 years of fucked-up foreign policy while funding dictators, revolutionaries, drug lords, and private armies?

Surely you're not so naive as to think the USA isn't responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians (and probably millions in fact) over the last 40 years of fucked-up foreign policy while funding dictators, revolutionaries, drug lords, and private armies?

Yeah, but that's not nearly genocidal enough. Genocidal would be instead of funding dictators and revolutionaries and drug lords and private armies, simply nuking any country that gets in our way. That's the level of evil we need t

The United States of America carried out one of the most successful genocides in the history of mankind. How many American Indians (Native Americans) do you know?

A few, I happen to be related to one actually. To be quite honest with you, if the shoe was on the other foot the Indians would have killed all of the white men, and if any were left over today they sure as shit wouldn't be getting special rights and privileges in an Indian society. Nor would any of them be emotionally weak enough to feel guil

if the shoe was on the other foot the Indians would have killed all of the white men, and if any were left over today they sure as shit wouldn't be getting special rights and privileges in an Indian society. Nor would any of them be emotionally weak enough to feel guilty about a victory on the battlefield.

"Don't be fooled Timmy, If a Cow had the chance he'd kill you and everyone you care about!" -- Troy McLure.

Am I the only one who was reminded of this quote by the parent's wildly fanatical fearmongering?

Except that is not the reason they want to kill us. Sure, they throw around theological drivel for recruitment. But their main stated reason is our troops are in their part of the world and they don't like it.

But what you don't seem to understand is that such Islamic sects are decentralized. The novel theological invention of the mujahdeen was the concept of individual jihad- that it doesn't take a country to declare a holy war. Because of that, the "stated reason" of their leadership is just so much ta

I'm inclined to disagree with Newt on this and at the same time I want to do everything possible to get the barbaric bastards who keep killing innocent people. It's tough and it's only going to get tougher. The world is about to get really scary, I'm afraid.

seriously... the world has always been very scary. today we have information overload. not to downplay the event, but imagine if something akin to 9-11 happened 25 years ago. if you lived on the west coast, or elsewhere in the world, odds are slim that you would have seen anything like the coverage that was available live. real information would have been given on the evening news and later in newspapers. as is the live feeds were more images than actual information of the causes.there have always been bad

Scarier? We didn't live in a non-scary world pre 9/11. The world was fucked up then. 9/11 didn't make the world scarier. It brought the scary shit to our doorstep forcing us to notice it for the first time in the average persons shielded fucking life.

The world is no scarier than it ever was, if anything it's less scary. Look at this list of causes of death [benbest.com]. Nowhere on there do I see rampaging hordes of terrorists. Most deaths are due to genetic predispositions to disease or stupidity. In previous centuries you might have seen "executions by a mad king" or "crushed to death while building a pyramid". In foreign countries today, "starvation" or "collateral damage" would be high on the list. Americans are some of the safest people in history.

Consider that during the cold war, your enemy had nuclear weapons and threatened to use them! More than once! Consider that during the second world war western democracies were under attack, not by some rogue bands of extremists, but by large industrial states with real armies and the resources to potentially conquer the world. The entire world could fall under a fascist regime. Now that's a threat!

Of course, during all of this people talked about curtailing freedom of speech, and they actually rounded up a bunch of Japanese americans and put them in camps. Most people (paradoxically) think this was wrong, but what the US government is doing with Guantanemo is far worse. They have already passed a law that will allow the president to throw people into a black hole with no judicial process or review. And those people can be tortured, because the president and the military get to decide what torture is. This is far worse than anything America has done going back to Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus (it has since been eliminated!) when the confederate army was at his doorstep. Lincoln may have been justified, but Bush is not. There is nowhere near the threat to the United States today. If anything, the biggest threat is the United States government itself, and the people who are so disinterested in politics that they have allowed a tyrant to rule them.

I'm inclined to disagree with Newt on this and at the same time I want to do everything possible to get the barbaric bastards who keep killing innocent people. It's tough and it's only going to get tougher. The world is about to get really scary, I'm afraid.

Of course we want to stop the barbarians from taking over. After all even though Tacitus' "let them hate us so long as they fear us" has a terrifying echo in today's politics, but then look what happened to Rome in its quest to stop the barbari and what happened to the world when the barbarians won. Neither prospect is something we want for our future.

Personally I see a direct correlation in the methods used to deal with extreme violent racist groups in the US (like the Klan, the American Nazis, etc and their descendants)and the means to destroy Al Qaeda and their ilk without destroying the very thing we are fighting for. Even Bush claims that Al Qaeda hates freedom and that our freedom needs to be defended, and to a certain extent he is correct on that although he's clearly not properly defending freedom. If we lose our freedom, our openness, our ability to accept and assimilate immigrants, we will cease to be the country that we once were, and never become what we were meant to be. If we are no longer America we are no longer on the right side of the struggle. If we are no longer America the terrorists win because their goal in this war is to destroy what we are and replace it with an autocracy, preferably a theocracy, and to manipulate us with their terrorist acts.

In this country there are a lot of groups preaching hate and violence, just like Al Qaeda. They even advocate violent overthrow of the government, which is often the limit set for acts of expression becoming criminal acts. In many other countries, Germany for instance, the mere presence of these groups and what they say would be illegal. But in our country it is different. Our country was founded on Enlightenment philosophy, like the famous saying of Voltaire's* "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This means that some people will express things that are distasteful to us, even evil in our eyes, but the fact they think these things is not itself a crime although some acts they might commit in the context of such beliefs definitely are.

In any case, we have found with other groups that it actually serves society's interest to allow these groups to freely express their opinions. There is the philosophical and educational benefit that these viewpoints are then out in the open and therefore can be openly rebutted, and that perhaps those individuals might change their minds with the right kind of rebuttal (whereas if they hid their ignorance and their "shameful" beliefs no one would be able to show them why they are wrong). But more than that, from a law enforcement standpoint if people say what they believe then we know who they are and can watch what they do. When people believe in violence and say so they may be more closely observed so the actual acts of violence might be thwarted. Their groups can be infiltrated more easily when they are more open about what they do, and this is how we reduced significantly the impact of our own homegrown terrorists.

I hate to resort to analogues from movies, but there is a scene in the original "Planet of the Apes" where a kind of reversal of the above takes place. The "subversive" chimpanzees are espousing "heretical" views and Dr. Zaius says "let them talk" in response to the members of the council that want to force the chimpanzees to be silent. In that case there was no freedom of speech but even then the benefit of allowing people who you want to quash to speak was recognized, if only from the standpoint of giving them enough rope to hang themselves. In our case the only heresy we should legitimately wish to quash is that of intolerance and violence. Even so by allowing these groups to speak freely everyone gets to know who they are and

Every time we talk about Corrupt leaders, THEY talk about "hate speach" and terrorist propaganda.

This from a group, that didn't conduct an investigation into actual suspects and money trails... and has yet to make a credible arrest. So where is the "protection?"

The Democrats had to force them to start taking port security seriously... and then the Republicans went ahead and sold the ports to Dubai when nobody was looking. Remember Dubai of the UAE? BCCI? How is allowing our port security to be run by the same government that launders terrorist money "sercurity".

It seems that when Newt is saying "terrorist recruiting" what he means is "NeoCon Opposition speech." All the "sky is falling" chicken littles fail to realize that the widespread NSA wiretaps started BEFORE 9/11... and yet how much security did they provide?

So while Grandma gets swiped and probed for bombs, we have little port security, where we have millions of tons of cargo that could contain something a lot bigger than a shoe bomb arrives every day.

Oh, and this same group, which is riddled with War Profiteers, Incompetent Chicken-Hawk war mongers, and people of questionable loyalty (just look at how many get money from foreign nationals or are compromised by NeoCons who know who they've slept with), also sold 7 military industrial plants to Dubai. So you now have the UAE making weapons on our soil, with some of our technology.

Does that make you feel safe? Or are we going to scan every web page for suspect comments -- just incase it has some info from Bin Laden. Look, if I were interested in doing something wrong, and sending a message to someone else, I could send them a picture with the data encoded, and only they would have the origina picture without the data. It's a simple technique but impossible to thwart. So -- the only possilbe use for controlling the internet to get "bad guys" is to control the internet. The only possible use for a database of all my purchases, is to have a database of all my purchases to sell to PR agencies, marketing companies, and election promoters -- because Al Qaeda is going to use cash.

No, Newt is just a corporate shill. And America attacked two countries for oil and genocide, who had nothing to do with 9/11. Please note, that none of the hijackers were from either country. There are no credible NeoCon leaders, and they have never shown any ability other than to get elected and steal our tax dollars for private gain.

Newt's not elected to anything, though he is talking about a 2008 presidential run.The only possible reason to want to curtail freedom of speech is to maintain a tighter control on a domestic population, which falls right in line with the current Republican agenda, so it's no surprise that that's what he wants, but I'm surprised even he would come right out and say it.

Anyone who is incapable of understanding why Freedom of Speech is essential to a democracy has no business being anywhere near government. Th

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism....Gingrich sharply criticized campaign finance laws he charged were reducing free speech and doing little to fight attack advertising. He also said court rulings over separation of church and state have hurt citizens' ability to express themselves and their faith.

So, free speech for Corporations & Christians is good, but free speech for Muslims is bad.

> Newt's not elected to anything, though he is talking about a 2008 presidential run.

Which is what this attack piece is all about, a preemptive strike to make Newt radioactive again and prevent him tossing his hat into the ring. I'm sure within a day the full text will appear and make a lot more sense. I'm also certain it won't receive a tenth the exposure this hit job gets.

I am not surprised. The sad part about all this is that many in America will accept this. Hopefully, it remains a minority. But as 9/11 showed, all it takes is for an attack to take place on our soil. And all that requires is for the right (or wrong) ppl to ignore some evidence again.

Many have shown that we value their lives more than they value their rights or others lives and their rights. We must get rid of the "They say the world has become too complex for simple answers.
They are wrong." or "I just w

Not only is Gingrich not in power, but we don't even know what he said. I'm not going to get all worked up about a few quotes or misquotes in a speech by a nobody.

That said, the larger issue is important. Just last night NBC ran a story [msn.com] about nuclear plant and security information being available in public libraries. My first reaction was that I generally favor public access to information, and that private watchdogs and the free press are probably why the US has not had a Chernobyl. The idea of purging public libraries is distasteful. But then they talked about what information was available, and I had to agree some of it should not be public, such as specifically the most damaging place to hit a nuclear power plant with an airplane. It is old information, and that sort of information would probably never be released now. Is that a good or bad thing?

You don't need public information to determine the most damaging place to hit a nuclear power plant (or a bridge, or a highrise) with an airplane. All you need is a structural engineer, which neither the U.S. nor the nuclear power (nor general construction industries) hold a monopoly on. You don't even need blueprints, given that design doesn't change that much from one nuclear power plant (bridge, highrise) to the next. Just make a good guess based on knowledge any 2nd year engineering student has, and hav

However, we do know from past experiences that Newt Gingrich doesn't believe in Free Speech. He spearheaded and passed the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1994 if you recall, which made it a federal crime punishable by prison and a $200,000 fine to transmit anything offensive over an electronic medium.

When interviewed he openly stated that he knew it was unconstitutional, and that he didn't believe in free speech.

The law was stricken, not for being unconstitutional, but for being unenforcible.

The idea of purging public libraries is distasteful. But then they talked about what information was available, and I had to agree some of it should not be public, such as specifically the most damaging place to hit a nuclear power plant with an airplane. It is old information, and that sort of information would probably never be released now. Is that a good or bad thing?

Stick with your instinct. I very highly doubt that the terrorists are even looking through our libraries for this type of knowledge, because it is so widely and vastly known at this point. The point you start purging libraries and telling people what they can and can't say due to what terrorists could possibly learn is the moment you begin sliding down the hill toward complete information control. Controlling speech does not make us safer, as we don't have a monopoly on information. The same type of information would be available at large from other sources.

People pretend as if the terrorists are using our own information against us, or as if they are very sophisticated and rely upon things they'd like to restrict. The truth is that the terrorists took out 3,000 people with a few pilot lessons and a couple boxcutters, and their bombs mostly consist of garbage bin fertilizer recipes. The key to stopping these people isn't in clamping down on information that they probably won't even use to stop their largely unsophisticated (at least in technological terms) attacks. One of the keys to winning the war on terror is to stop being so afraid.

He's politically radioactive after shutting down the government in budget battles with Clinton.

Which I've never understood. Shutting down the government showed people some things-- the biggest was that much of the government is superfluous, and that having a good amount of the government not working didn't effect much. The press was all in a titter looking for the horrible effects of the government shutdown, and the most the were able to find was that a few people couldn't get passports and government

Shutting down the government showed people some things-- the biggest was that much of the government is superfluous, and that having a good amount of the government not working didn't effect much.

Actually, that's an insanely revisionist view. The reason shutting down the government was an unmitigated disaster for the Republicans (and killed the "Contract With^H^H^H^HOn America" stone dead, was that people did miss it.

They missed libraries, and museums, and all the tiny little things. If it was such a su

Republicans who don't believe in the value of oversight, good government, and social supports have done a great job illustrating what NO GOVERNMENT looks like.

Look at the Katrina disaster; FEMA outsourced all their equipment to the former head of FEMA... which is no big deal, since they didn't seem to think FEMA was much more than a check machine for Florida hurricanes. So the fat government deal given to the former head of FEMA, get's outsourced to other companies... because he doesn't do the work, just gets the profits. Unfortuneatly, this great experiment in "outsourced" government, went awry when an actual disaster occured. No buses were available. We all know about the smoke-screen cover arguing about how New Orleans was too corrupt or lazy to save themselves -- but the actual fact was that buses were planned and ordered but never arrived.

What was FEMA thinking, when they stopped 400 fanboat rescue volunteers from Florida? Either it was CYA or there was an interest in getting rid of troublesome New Orleans squatters... but if you assume that it was merely incompetence, we come to the other failure in government; Jobs. Haliburton was contracted, in a no bid deal, to fix up a lot of homes. They've outsourced that job to "guest workers" from Mexico while still retaining huge sums to do the work. So, in order to save Americans from the burdens of Socialist projects that use citizens for public works, we spend more to get less, and keep more citizens too impoverished to better themselves.

I'm sick of the mentality that accepts 100% corporate control or it's Communism. Our drug companies make huge profits on drugs our government subsidized to research... but above on beyond the argument that "profits=progress" why is it every woman in this country must spend about $35 a month for birth control? Wouldn't it make sense, that the government research this basic need, and provide it for free or perhaps a $1 month? Where did the Public Good, change to "someone needs to profit?" There is no inherent right to profit or even existence for corporations -- yet that's how our government now acts.

They spent $13 Billion subsidizing big oil, which has made record profits. $13 Billion could provide a lot of school lunches and books, or healthcare for every kid in this country. $13 Billion is apparently, chicken feed, when we urgently need it for 6 weeks of the Iraq war... but too much when actually helping Americans who didn't "work" for it.

Well that's crap -- what people earn or "work for" is an arbitrary value. One Oil CEO getting a Billion $ a year, or a minimum wage worker making $12,000 a year is an arbitrary value. It's just a lot of corporate-BS in people's heads that has them convinced that somehow these values reflect any true value of the person working. IF so, then CEO's would get paid less, or perhaps outsourced to INDIA. I'm sure I could lose GE money for a lot less than their current CEO -- I could perhaps even make them a profit.

If we allow everything to be driven by what corporations want, then no bar will go too low. As soon as Burger King hires "guest workers", McDonalds will have to fire their workers and do the same.

So Newt shutting down the government, would have had greater effects the longer it lasted. And we've seen how important Congressional oversight can be -- with the lack of it these last 6 years and a total failure in government.

We have an EPA that protect polluters. While the level of Mercury in pregnant women has doubled.

We have an FDA that protects bad drugs on behalf of drug companies.

Our government has been stood on its head... and the repercussions of that are just beginning to be felt. We will have a generation of poorly educated test-takers, who have developed asthma, diabetes and Autism in epidemic numbers. Eating all manner of modified foods, breathing adulterated air in some grand experiment. The solution will not be for everyone to be an expert in health, and to test their own foods, and teach their own kids -- this is

No. It pissed everyone off because:1. It was done out of spite and stubornness. Things don't get that bad without a complete failure of compromise and statemenship.2. It should people just how much they depended on the government.

People get pissed when things don't work. Not when everything is going fine. And in the end, Gingrich's stunt backfired. His, and the rest of GOP's, popular support fell like a rock, and he ended up getting nothing more than what was originally offered. It was a spectacular

"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"

I've read it. It kills me. Newt totally twists history to suit his agenda -- and the sad thing is, most Americans are so unaware of US history that they don't know enough to realize he is full of it.

What I don't get, is that he blasts the Federalist movement for the Sedition Act:

Madison and Thomas Jefferson were very sensitive to limitations on free speech because they lived through the Federalist efforts to criminalize political speech that was critical of the government. In response to the Sedition Ac

I had to laugh at that, given that his party was in charge when we DID lose a city. Too bad no one could figure out how to tie Mother Nature to terrorists.I read the rest of the article and it is all him setting himself up for a presidential campaign. The part about getting rid of the separation of church and state, and stating that Bush has failed in Iraq after the entire rest of the world finally came around to admitting it are hardly impressive.